1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains to a zipper for a reclosable container, such as a bag manufactured by a form, fill and seal apparatus, wherein the base of the female profile includes apertures which allows packaged product, such as powder, which has entered the female profile, to pass through the apertures and return to being packaged within the reclosable container.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the prior art, it is known to use a zipper with a female profile and a male profile in the manufacture of a reclosable container, such as a bag manufactured by a form, fill and seal apparatus. However, it is further known that if a fine powder product is packaged within the reclosable container, that this fine powder or similar particles can enter the female profile and degrade the performance of the zipper by blocking insertion of the male profile. Furthermore, if the user cleans this fine powder product from the female profile, this powder tends to be discarded rather than returned to the reclosable package. Moreover, this cleaning of the female profile can tend to contaminate any fine powder product that is returned to the reclosable package.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,878,468 entitled "Closure Arrangement for Reclosable Bag and Method Thereof" and issued to Tomic et al. on Mar. 9, 1999 discloses longitudinal breaks in at least one leg of the female profile. These longitudinal breaks can further occur in both legs of the female profile along with the male profile. However, this can degrade the sealing properties of the zipper. Moreover, this is somewhat inefficient in that the fine powder product must move at a right angle to the direction of insertion of the male profile into the female profile.
A somewhat similar structure and corresponding method are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,617,770 entitled "Closure Arrangement for Reclosable Bag" issued on Apr. 8, 1997 to May wherein portions are removed from one leg of the female profile by an L-shaped punch.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,273,511 entitled "Method to Improve Welding of Profiled Plastic Film or Tape" and issued to Boeckman on Dec. 28, 1993 discloses longitudinal breaks in the female profile with apertures formed in the film of the container or bag along these longitudinal breaks. Again, this can degrade the sealing properties of the zipper and further requires the precise alignment of the sections of female profile, so that the apertures are positioned in the breaks between these sections.